Tag Archives: Arizona Chamber of Commerce

The state’s largest private hospitals have made their qualms known about a proposed $935 million in tax-funded financing for the county health system, but they aren’t lining up with groups opposed to it.

Almost two dozen incumbent lawmakers can boast of earning the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s endorsement despite opposing the business community’s biggest policy positions in the last two years.

In the last two years, more than two dozen legislators who had received the support of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry during the 2012 elections fought the business community on two of its biggest policy battles — upholding Common Core and expanding Medicaid.

Proponents of a bill that would bar employees from suing for damages over bad-faith denials of workers’ compensation claims headed off a contentious fight, at least for now, by putting the proposal on hold for the remainder of the 2014 session.

Common Core opponents took a beating this week when two bills were killed in the Senate followed by a sparsely attended press conference in which one of the Legislature’s most ardent foes of the learning standards was a no-show.

After Attorney General Tom Horne took the stand to defend himself against allegations that he coordinated with an independent expenditure committee, it was hard to find election law experts who agreed on whether his actions violated Arizona law.

For the eighth year in a row, the Legislature has once again introduced a bill to eliminate public notices in newspapers. This bill is an assault on transparency and your right to be notified of important information, all while promoting the growth of government bureaucracy at the expense of local Arizona jobs and businesses.

House Speaker Andy Tobin wants to enact more stringent regulations on who can use the state’s Medicaid system, while freshman Republican Rep. Adam Kwasman wants to repeal last year’s Medicaid expansion altogether.
And on top of it all, they both want to be the next congressman from Arizona’s 1st Congressional District.

An independent expenditure committee backed by Gov. Jan Brewer and expected to benefit the Republican legislators who sided with her in last year’s Medicaid expansion fight has raised more than $600,000 so far.